


Grooming and the Zen of Misha Maintenance

by kriari (kadielkrieger)



Category: Supernatural RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:01:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadielkrieger/pseuds/kriari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ridiculous clothes-straightening fluff. I blame Paley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grooming and the Zen of Misha Maintenance

The first time it happens, he's not even thinking.

There's a flash in the corner of his eye, white against heather grey, Misha shrugging out of his rumpled trench and into a hoodie to ward off the cold.

It's late October and Jensen sure as _hell_ isn't thinking when he stretches behind Jared's ridiculously broad back to tuck in that tiny flapping tag.

He just does.

Misha palms the back of his neck, fingers restless as they trace the line of his jaw the way they only get when he's uncomfortable but trying not to be. He smiles, lips tugged tight at the corners and eyes hooded, then mouths a "Thanks" that pulls a laugh from Jensen's lungs.

Bob glares at him.

Jensen doesn't care.

***

The second time, he’s tipsy and feeling good - as convenient an excuse as any for not thinking.

Except that under the heady fog of Glennfidditch and a primo Cuban, he is.

Misha passed drunk six exits back and now he’s slumped across the table, chin propped precariously in the curve of his hands, his fingertips tapping more or less rhythmically against his cheeks. Jensen couldn’t say when he’d begun to understand the conversation caught in those slender stalks of tendon and bone, but now he’s able to translate every last one of their subtleties.

So yes, this time he knows what he’s doing when he does it, lingering longer than he probably has to when he smooths one of the wayward peaks of Misha’s obnoxious shirt back down.

This time, Misha’s smile blooms, gummy and unguarded, tongue peeking out between his teeth when he licks his lips to speak. Jensen loses the words in the squeak of wood against wood as Jared flops in the chair to his right and three fresh tumblers hit the tabletop.

Which is fine, because he’s not thinking about it.

***

The third time, Jensen’s the one blitzed beyond recognition, judiciously spiked eggnog on his breath and Christmas tinsel strung in his hair. The world’s a blurry band of swirling color and sound, rainbow fairy lights flung in a wide whirling arc, a hurricane whose serene center is spun of rough brown tweed, bright blue eyes, and leather elbow patches.

When he tugs at Misha’s sleeves and calls him Professor Collins, Misha levers a shoulder under his arm and aims them for an overstuffed couch in the corner.

In the morning, once the pounding in his skull recedes enough to leave room for coherent thought, Jensen thinks he remembers drooling on Misha’s ridiculous Rudolph T-shirt, the one with the bright, blinking red nose.

***

The fourth time, he is thinking - possessed of all of his meager faculties and completely, unfortunately present.

He’s also on camera and Misha’s not Misha beyond the fact they ruin six takes because he refuses to stand still.

Jensen nearly strangles him before they get the footage because every time he buttons that button and straightens that fucking tie, he catches a burn in his belly, feels the scrape of Misha’s stubble against his knuckles way down deep.

***

The fifth time Jensen would like to call an accident.

It isn’t.

He’s spent most of the day throwing himself against a wall with his hands fisted in the front of Castiel’s trenchcoat. His head’s pounding, nerves worn thin by too much so-close-but-no-cigar.

It’s no accident he misses Misha’s knock, the patter of water against the bottom of the sink enough to drown it out from the other end of the trailer. He’s trying to splash the day off his face, the back of his neck, but it’s only halfway working.

It’s also no accident that after he swipes that scrap of dark blue terrycloth across his eyes, Misha’s standing there in street clothes, no explanation, no hint of one forthcoming. His sweater’s turned inside out and there’s a tuft of dark hair flipped up above his eyebrow.

And Jensen can’t.

Misha lets him strip off the stupid sweater, limbs loose and liquid if not entirely helpful. He doesn’t protest, doesn’t say a word even though his eyes twinkle with a thousand different possible meanings. Jensen crushes the wool between his fingers, stares at the variegated green until it swims and twists, froths like the sea. Until Misha’s hands cover his own, the curl of his fingers an expression that even he can’t misconstrue.

They say, “took you long enough,” when Jensen reaches up to flatten the probably premeditated cowlick.

All he can do is concede the point.

***

Press lines are not his thing. He manages, sure. Flirtation is an art form he perfected long before he donned the Lothario mantle of Dean Winchester.

Jensen knows how to charm.

It’s just that in the press of flesh and flashes he feels more like a cardboard cutout of himself than a person. He’s gotten used to it.

His appointed babysitters are trying to corral him to the end of the line when there’s a flash out of the corner of his eye, white against grey, Misha’s collar so twisted across the back of his neck, Jensen wonders how it doesn’t bother him.

Maybe it does.

Maybe that’s the point.

He’s not even thinking when he does it. If he were, he might have to acknowledge the texture of the fine hairs at the nape of Misha’s neck, that he can still feel the way they prickle against his lips, that he can smell Misha on himself even if no one else can. So while he’s certain it’s appropriate, Jensen couldn’t begin to repeat what he’s said.

He’s too busy not thinking.  



End file.
